We take a moment…for education
For the first time, the G20’s Leaders’ Declaration included concrete recommendations to support education for all. This was in part thanks to international education champions, former world leaders, passionate youth advocates, and celebrities who for the past year, made the case about the importance of investing in education.
July 21, 2017 by Madge Thomas, Global Citizen
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10 minutes read
L-R: President and First Lady Macri of Argentina, GPE Board Chair Julia Gillard, Norwegian PM Erna Solberg, Save the Children CEO Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Shakira, Wongani Nyirenda and Gordon Brown at Global Citizen Festival Hamburg.  Credit: Jorg Modrow/ Global Citizen
L-R: President and First Lady Macri of Argentina, GPE Board Chair Julia Gillard, Norwegian PM Erna Solberg, Save the Children CEO Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Shakira, Wongani Nyirenda and Gordon Brown at Global Citizen Festival Hamburg.
Credit: Jorg Modrow/ Global Citizen

For the first time ever, we saw concrete recommendations to support education for all in the G20’s Leaders’ Declaration - the document that captures results of months of negotiations and agenda-setting for the world’s most powerful leaders. The final communiqué included a statement for strengthening existing mechanisms such as the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait (ECW), under Argentina’s presidency of the G20 next year.

The fact that education was even on the G20’s agenda was due in no small part to a plethora of voices, from international education champions, former world leaders, passionate youth advocates, celebrities and, of course, hundreds of thousands of Global Citizens. It seemed like this year, the word on everyone’s lips was ‘education’... and world leaders tuned in to listen. 

Here’s why that’s exciting

Unlike other issues to fight extreme poverty, like better health, and promoting the empowerment of girls and women, the education community has not had a ‘spotlight’ moment in the past 10 years. 

Why? The cost of delivering education is difficult to quantify and varies; the barriers can range from country to country; in a conflict or crisis, other resources like food and health are seen as higher priorities, and education is a long term investment because the ‘return’ and benefits to individual children or improvements to a country’s GDP can take several years.

This makes it harder to attract long-term investors to education and to demonstrate the reasons why education is a sound investment that can achieve and unlock many of the other Sustainable Development Goals.

Which is why Global Citizen kicked off our Festival in Hamburg with an education reception that brought together major players including Education Commissioners and former Heads of State: Julia Gillard, Gordon Brown, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and Jakaya Kikwete and Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg; heads of our fellow civil society organizations, CEO’s and C-suite executives from top corporate sector entities, like President and CEO of Gucci, Marco Bizzarri, HP and the Gates foundation, and passionate advocates and youth, like UNICEF’s youngest goodwill ambassador, Muzoon Almellehan, and Sarah Mardini.  We wanted to showcase the many perspectives and imperatives for why investing in education makes common sense and global sense too.

A concerted group effort

Our work builds on the efforts of the education community this year. Global Citizen has stood with the Malala Fund, UNICEF, TheirWorld, Plan International, the ONE foundation and the Global Campaign For Education. Undeterred by the absence of an education agenda initially, collectively we set out to ensure that the G7 and G20 would be critical moments for global education. Our voices were amplified by 136,639 Global Citizens who, over the past six months, have taken action to make Sustainable Development Goal 4 a reality and to support GPE’s next replenishment.

While the G7 fell short of our hopes earlier this year in Italy — the release of the first G7 accountability report on education was postponed in May and still has not been released — the G20 did step up and listen to the voices of global citizens and others.

They listened to former Prime Minister of Australia and chair of the Global Partnership for Education, Julia Gillard, who said in April that educating all children, particularly girls, is critical to achieving each and every sustainable development goal,. On our stage at the Festival, Julia Gillard announced that, if GPE hits its replenishment targets in 2018, this "will ensure the education of 870 million children in 89 of the world's poorest countries".

They watched Shakira and Rihanna ask their fans and young people around the world to call out their leaders and ask them what their plan is to educate every child.

They listened to UN Special Envoy for Education, Chair of the Education Commission and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who described the fight for education on the Global Citizen festival stage as, “the civil rights struggle of our generation”. They heard Prime Minister Erna Solberg tell other world leaders at the festival in Hamburg why investment in education is her government’s top priority.

They saw Muzoon Almellehan talk about the 75 million children out of school in emergency situations and how, in a world of escalating crises and extremism, the Education Cannot Wait fund can support young people and ensure they are equipped with the learning they need to build a brighter future.

Finally, they heard 14-year-old Wongani from Malawi step forward and tell the world that he wouldn’t be standing on the Global Citizen stage talking about the need for joint action, if it wasn’t for his education and the investment that organizations like GPE. His words ‘Together is Powerful’ were a perfect explanation for why education received unprecedented attention in the lead up to the G20.

Wongani and Julia Gillard on stage at Global Citizen Festival Hamburg.

Wongani and Julia Gillard on stage at Global Citizen Festival Hamburg.

Photo Credit: Ramon Haindl for Global Citizen

Together is powerful

Together these advocates and Global Citizens told our most powerful leaders how a new architecture for education and three, complementary financing mechanisms, GPE, ECW and an international financing facility for education, could finally make universal access to education a reality.

And together, we saw the G20 leaders’ declaration for the first time make a recommendation about education and reinforce the need for all three mechanisms.

Why is this important?

The work doesn’t end here and it will be important that the G20 not only prioritize education next year but ‘puts its money where its mouth is’ by fully replenishing GPE, ensuring Education Cannot Wait is fully funded and making recommendations on a new financing facility proposed by the UN Secretary General.

If these mechanisms go under-funded and under-developed, a stark future lies ahead for us all. "Right now, there are 1.6 billion young people and if the investment in education holds,” — Shakira warned from the Global Citizen festival stage— “by 2030, 800 million of them will lack even the skills necessary for employment. That’s more than half of the next generation, and we can't afford that.”

That is why, under the stewardship of Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, the leader of next year’s G20 host country, we hope the positive ripple effect of education and its priority on the global agenda will only grow. We’re hopeful as President Macri promised the 12,000-strong crowd at the Festival that he would expand and innovate global education systems during Argentina’s presidency of the G20 in 2018.

With the impact truly felt by World Leaders to prioritize education, our task is to make sure global education stays on everyone’s agenda.

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